_Nest._ Now I begin to relish thy advice: Come, let us go to Agamemnon strait, To inform him of our project.
_Ulys._ 'Tis not ripe. The skilful surgeon will not lance a sore, Till nature has digested and prepared The growing humours to her healing purpose; Else must he often grieve the patient's sense, When one incision, once well-timed, would serve. Are not Achilles and dull Ajax friends?
_Ulys._ That knot of friendship first must be untied, Ere we can reach our ends; for, while they love each other, Both hating us, will draw too strong a bias, And all the camp will lean that way they draw; For brutal courage is the soldier's idol: So, if one prove contemptuous, backed by t'other, 'Twill give the law to cool and sober sense, And place the power of war in madmen's hands.
_Nest._ Now I conceive you; were they once divided, And one of them made ours, that one would check The other's towering growth, and keep both low, As instruments, and not as lords of war. And this must be by secret coals of envy Blown in their breast; comparisons of worth; Great actions weighed of each; and each the best, As we shall give him voice.
Who feeds on Ajax, yet loves him not, because he cannot love; But, as a species differing from mankind, Hates all he sees, and rails at all he knows; But hates them most from whom he most receives, Disdaining that his lot should be so low, That he should want the kindness which he takes.
_Nest._ There's none so fit an engine:--Save ye, Thersites.
_Ulys._ Hail, noble Grecian! thou relief of toils, Soul of our mirth, and joy of sullen war, In whose converse our winter nights are short, And summer days not tedious.
_Thers._ But hang thee first, thou very reverend fool! Thou sapless oak, that liv'st by wanting thought, And now, in thy three hundredth year, repin'st Thou shouldst be felled: hanging's a civil death, The death of men; thou canst not hang; thy trunk Is only fit for gallows to hang others.
_Thers._ A fine old dotard, to repine at hanging At such an age! what saw the Gods in thee, That a cock-sparrow should but live three years, And thou shouldst last three ages? he's thy better; He uses life; he treads himself to death. Thou hast forgot thy use some hundred years. Thou stump of man, thou worn-out broom, thou lumber!